Paying Attention to the Words

I love to sing, and often pay more attention to singing than to what I am singing. However, occasionally the Holy Spirit manages to get the words beyond my eyes. Such was the case this morning when during Communion we sang, “Jesus Comes today with Healing” LSB 620.

What initially caught my eye was the image of the pastor/priest entering the bread and wine, “Christ Himself, the priest presiding, Yet in bread and wine abiding.” Try to imagine that happening to your pastor/priest doing the liturgy.

In stanza 3 we declared as we sang, “Under bread and wine, though lowly, I receive the Savior holy.” Christ dwelling in ordinary wheat flour harvested by a combine and water from a well combined and grapes which grew and were picked by hand and allowed to ferment.

Stanza 4 tells that this morning, in our presence, “God descends with heav’nly power, Gives Himself to me this hour- in this ordinary sign.” Furthermore, as I kneeled at the communion rail, “I tasted His love divine.”

No wonder the hymn ended with reference to a ”Balm to heal the troubled soul…Makes my wounded spirit whole.”